Rosalyn shrugged her shoulders. ‘We might as well comply. Anything to make our stay here a little more comfortable.’
‘Loss of privileges, blah, de blah, de blah,’ said the Australians.
‘What privileges?’ asked Nadine.
No one knew.
‘I understand the crimes though,’ said Peggy.
A breathless hush settled on them, as they read the main reason why one of them might end up imprisoned in one of the three huts made of corrugated tin standing close to the latrines at the edge of the camp.
‘“Black marketing, smuggling and undue fraternization,”’ Kiri read out loud.
The Australians raised their eyebrows in disbelief. ‘Undue fraternization? What the hell are we here for if it isn’t to fraternize?’
‘Congratulations, Peg.’
Peggy turned to her fellow Australian. ‘For what?’
‘For using the polite f-word.’
The girls laughed, all except Rosalyn who was taking this very seriously. Rosalyn was well built – something between voluptuous and formidable. She puffed herself up to what seemed her full size.
‘We betray our bodies but not our minds. That is what I mean. In other words, we don’t get emotionally involved.’
The women erupted.
‘Of course we won’t!’
‘Kill them if we have to.’
‘Fight them. Yes! Fight them!’
‘And die!’ said Nadine.
Nadine never shouted, but her voice had a certain gravitas that was hard to resist. The single word hung in the air.
‘Go on, Nadine. Tell us what’s on your mind.’
Nadine got to her feet. ‘I want to survive this and I’d prefer that none of you go killing our captors. That way we’re all dead meat.’
‘So, Miss Clever, tell us your little plan.’
Rosalyn smirked in her superior way, as though no one could be quite as brilliant as the daughter of a general.
Nadine found it easy to ignore her. ‘This is a business and with a bit of forethought we might be able to buy things with the extra bits of money we earn, the tips madam doesn’t know about. We know there are traders who come to the camp. We can bide our time and wait to be rescued. And…’
She paused until she had their full attention.
‘We can buy our freedom.’
Betty frowned. ‘Won’t she try and load up the amount we owe to her?’
‘As I’ve said, mark the tradesmen that come in here. Bribe them to get us out as soon as we can, or wait until we’re liberated – whenever that’s likely to be.’
Even the outspoken Australians didn’t question when that was likely to be. No one wanted to face the fact that they might be forced to ‘be nice’ to the enemy for a long time to come.
Caroline looked puzzled. ‘So how do we do that?’
Nadine smiled. ‘There are ways, but don’t expect other people to do it for you. You have to watch, you have to listen. Eventually the right opportunity will present itself.’
Nadine saw Peggy smile and presumed it was because she’d trounced the dreaded Rosalyn.
Peggy was sharper than most. Though Nadine didn’t know it, a life of isolation in India had left its mark. Believing that her cunning was common to everyone, she failed to see that not all others had been blessed with such sharpness.
‘How about if we refuse to do this and ask to be transferred into a proper POW camp?’ she said.
Nadine rested her chin on her hugged knees. ‘We’ve all heard what they’re like. We’ve all heard how little there is to eat, how many are dying. What price life? What price survival? If you can’t manage a fate worse than death, then go over there. Your choice. I want life. At any price, except,’ she said, looking up, ‘betraying my friends.’
* * *
On that first night when they were open for business, everyone washed and dressed silently, their despair hidden behind masks of resignation. In a last-ditch attempt to put off the dreaded moment, Peggy had refused to comb her hair.
‘If I look ugly, no one will want me.’
Nadine, who was tying some tiny bells around her ankles, corrected her. ‘Not necessarily. If you look like an old sack they may treat you like one.’
Peggy looked disbelieving.
‘Or worse… like a Chinese,’ Nadine added.
Peggy, and a few others who’d followed her lead, fought over the hairbrush.
Conversation always returned to the same subject.
‘I want to get out of here. Regardless of this paying-off business, I think I’ll ask to be interned properly with the other prisoners when the stockade is finally built,’ said Caroline. It was whispered she was the daughter of a barrister and hailed from Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. She certainly spoke like that and her clothes had quality. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be terribly easy.’
Nadine raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s an understatement!’
Lucy worried her. She lay on her bed, staring into the distance. She refused to talk about her ordeals or to return the pitying looks of the other women.
Nadine searched their expressions. Some hid their fear very well indeed. Others did not. Kochi’s thin, brown arms shivered and set her earrings jangling. They were large and long, taken from a box containing similar jewellery. Nadine touched her hand and said, ‘We must be brave.’
Kochi bit her lip so hard that it turned bright red as the blood rushed to the surface. Her eyelids fluttered. Her voice trembled.
‘I have to tell you something. I have never been with a man. You know – naked.’
There was little privacy in rooms where the walls were made of woven matting. Rosalyn had overheard. Her voice carried through like water through reeds. ‘Well, you have to do your duty. Like the rest of us,’
‘Shut up, Rosalyn!’ Nadine’s smile for the poor girl was feeble, but all she had. ‘Take no notice,’ she said with a little shake of her head.
It did no good, of course. It was an attempt to ease Kochi’s nerves, but Nadine could see by the way her dangling earrings trembled that she hadn’t been successful.
Nor was Rosalyn giving up easily. ‘I won’t be responsible for your non-compliance.’
Nadine, who had been mixing a concoction of coconut milk and rice, was getting angry. ‘Rosalyn, if you don’t shut up I’m going to come in there and cut out your tongue. With a –’ she paused and stopped stirring – ‘with a spoon!’
Rosalyn tossed her head. ‘Hmm! Well, I wash my hands of you natives. Get into trouble and you’re on your own.’
‘And us whiteys?’ asked a bemused Peggy, puffing on the tail end of a cigarette that four of the girls were sharing between them.
Rosalyn sniffed. ‘That’s different!’
‘And I’m different,’ said Nadine. ‘Isn’t that what you’re saying?’
‘You’re not European.’
‘My father was British.’
‘So you’re half-caste.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Caroline, the girl from Chelsea, interrupted. ‘Come on, Rosalyn, old girl. Give it a rest. We’re all in the same boat together.’
Rosalyn looked deflated. Caroline, being from an upper-class background, was the only girl she sucked up to. She obviously hadn’t expected to be put down by her own kind.
Caroline was a law unto herself. ‘Take no notice,’ she said, walking over to Nadine whilst inhaling the smoke from a cigarette she’d begged from an officer. ‘She’s a cow, darling. An utter bloody cow.’
Nadine smiled as Caroline sat down on the floor beside her. Caroline had such a wonderfully upper-class way of swearing, almost as though she were delivering the expletive from the pulpit.
‘Common at heart,’ she added. ‘Just tries to put it on. Take no notice.’
‘We’ll get through this.’ Nadine eyed Kochi as she said it. The girl was wringing her hands together, almost to the point of tying them in knots.
‘That’s right,’ Caroline added. ‘You’ll get over this
. You just see if you don’t. You’re both so young, especially you, Nadine. Surely you’re not long out of school.’
‘Not long.’ Nadine’s attention drifted out towards the bamboo bridge. In the distance she could see boxes being unloaded from an army truck and taken into Madam’s quarters. Other things went in too; the brocade covering of an ornate chair flashed in the sunlight. Another Japanese soldier was carrying a carpet, yet another was staggering beneath the weight of an elaborate and very large candelabra. Narrowing her eyes, she remembered something Martin had said about people making fortunes during war and telling lies merely to survive.
An idea occurred to her. Yes, she did look young. She was, after all, barely seventeen and suddenly very scared. Rosalyn would never be on her side. It was up to her to do what she could to protect herself. Was it possible her youth could save her – if handled properly?
The setting sun was fingering the velvet sky with tongues of orange.
A few curious eyes glanced her way as she got up and headed for the door. Her face was a mask, impervious even to those who bothered to look: fear had made islands of them all.
She watched her bare toes making marks in the dust on the floor. On the outside she appeared calm. Inside she was terrified.
Caroline, of course, was the exception to the rule. The others might be experiencing first-night nerves, but Caroline was made of sterner stuff. ‘Get a grip, girls,’ she said, like the head girl at school.
Nadine made a sudden decision and got to her feet.
‘Hey. Where are you going?’ Caroline shouted after her.
‘To see the She-Dragon.’ She used the name the girls had decided suited their ‘benefactress’ rather well.
‘She’ll bite your head off.’
Nadine fixed her gaze on the bridge and beyond to the closed door of Madam Cherry’s abode.
‘Which could save you the bother of presenting it to her on a plate.’
Caroline frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Nadine kept her gaze fixed on the bridge. ‘We don’t know for sure whether the Japanese are winning or whether we are. Who knows? In a few days we might be liberated. It wouldn’t hurt to buy a little time in the hope that we will be rescued.’
Rosalyn sniffed. ‘Oh, really! And how, might I ask, does our innocent little schoolgirl intend doing that?’
Nadine looked at her in such a forthright manner that the older girl was forced to look away.
‘By offering something of great value to the She-Dragon. Something only I can give.’
Chapter Fourteen
Nadine heard the laughter of officers nearby as she made her way from the Bamboo Bridge House. Perhaps they were coming for her.
‘Not yet,’ she whispered. If she could only hold off the eventuality of her situation for a short while longer, it might be long enough for rescuers to find them, for the war to end, for her to be free from her captors.
Although she knew she was treading a dangerous path, she bowed low to the guards and asked to be taken to Madam Cherry.
The She-Dragon appeared in the doorway and her face expressed displeasure. ‘You should not be here! What is it you want?’
Nadine bowed respectfully. ‘I have something very precious and sought after to sell.’
A deep frown registered between the finely plucked eyebrows. The little red mouth pursed. ‘What is it? I see nothing in your hands.’
Nadine smiled in a cunning manner, the sort of smile that would intrigue the avaricious woman.
‘I have brought you an unblemished rosebud. I am sixteen years old and not long out of school. Surely that is of some value even here in this place? If I spent some time dancing, my price would be even more than it is now for the first man to take my virginity. Is that not so? Would I not be worth more?’
‘Sixteen? A virgin?’
The imagined tinkling of coins falling into a cash register was like music to Madam’s ears. The door opened wider.
It had been a last-minute decision to reduce her age to sixteen, a good decision.
‘Come in. And shut the door behind you. I warn you, you had better be telling the truth.’
The floor of the room was warm to Nadine’s bare feet. There were shoes and native-style sandals to wear, but she’d decided to go barefoot. It hardened the soles, and besides, she could run faster in bare feet.
Madam Cherry’s accommodation had atmosphere. It also had movement. Moths battered their fragile wings against a lit oil lamp. Two empty glasses sat on the table waiting to be filled.
Madam Cherry’s calculating eyes narrowed as she folded her graceful hands. ‘So! You are untouched?’
Nadine lowered her eyes almost bashfully and nodded. ‘Yes. Is that not of value?’ Tonight was the first night the Bamboo Bridge House was open for business. If she could just put unwanted intimacy off for one month, one week, one day… until rescue came… hopefully.
Madam Cherry eyed the slender girl standing before her.
‘Well,’ she said slowly, her enthusiasm hidden behind a mask of casual indifference. ‘So how much do you think you are worth?’
Nadine was not fooled. Madam Cherry’s greed was like lava bubbling unseen in the heart of a volcano.
‘Quite a lot if handled properly. I thought perhaps I could be offered at some special event. I could dance first. I could dance at many events – even outside the compound, and thus my fame would spread. You could make much money.’
If it occurred to Madam Cherry that dancing outside the compound might also provide an opportunity to escape, she did not mention it, though doubtless it crossed her mind. She wasn’t stupid.
The woman’s pencil-thin eyebrows rose along with her interest. ‘And then auction you to the highest bidder?’
‘For the whole night.’ Naturally the idea was abhorrent, but just one man, thought Nadine, hopefully no more. It was some consolation, though little enough. Ultimately she still hoped to escape or be rescued. If she had money in time she might be able to bribe the guards or the coolies.
Madam clapped her hands. ‘And make even more money! Yes.’ Her laughter exposed her uneven teeth, a number of which had gold fillings.
Nadine pushed the suggestion a little further. ‘Until then perhaps I should remain out of reach and live here with you? Otherwise the men might be tempted and our efforts ruined.’
She imagined the effect this orchestrated arrangement would have on some of her colleagues, but this was no time to worry about petty jealousies. She’d told the Australians about her plan; she’d even told Lucy though she wasn’t sure that she’d taken it in. Lucy didn’t speak. She didn’t seem to hear.
Seeing Lucy like that had made her determined. What she proposed was about survival and having access to inside information that might result in all of them regaining their freedom. More importantly, she might gain access to medicine and they were certainly going to need that.
Madam Cherry held her head to one side as she considered the proposal. ‘Yes.’ She nodded with guarded enthusiasm. ‘Yes. There must be no suspicion that you have been undone. You will stay here with me until the time is ripe.’
‘And I think I deserve ten per cent of whatever I earn from my deflowering, but for me directly, not to pay off my debt to you. Yes?’
‘Ten per cent?’ Madam Cherry looked quite shocked at such a brazen comment. ‘That is quite out of the question. Five per cent.’
Nadine thought quickly. No matter how little the amount, she sorely needed money to buy necessities, things that would soar in price as the war continued.
Freedom also would come at a price. Five per cent was better than nothing.
‘Five per cent of whatever you get for me. I won’t ask for a cut of what you will make for putting on entertainment, drink and food. After all, it is I who own this much-valued pearl.’
Madam Cherry tilted her head from side to side and back again as she considered this.
‘Yes. I agree to this, but I will have to charge yo
u for the items needed to fully exploit your potential.’
Nadine could see from the deep black eyes that there was no room for negotiation.
Head bowed to show her subservience, she smiled as though she truly believed the woman. ‘I agree. I will get my things.’ Nadine bowed herself out.
The path back to the Bamboo Bridge House was black with shadows thrown by a silver moon. Her heart was light – or lighter than it had been, but there was no room for complacency, but still… If she’d been sure of not drawing attention to herself, she would have run all the way, skipping and shouting ‘Hallelujah!’
Escape or rescue might be impossible, but if she used her cunning she might become the privileged whore of whoever bought her virginity. Whore! Virgin! Neither word suited her. She did not wish to be the former and she certainly wasn’t the latter. If this was found out – as ultimately it would be – she would be in even deeper trouble. Something had to happen before then.
A queue had formed on the landfall side of the bridge: officers only, of course, and all with lust in their eyes. The fact that the opening of the establishment had been awaited with politeness and great self-control on the part of the men amazed her. That didn’t mean their patience would last.
Her steps slowed, her nerves tightened. She had to pass them. Would they fall on her as they had on Lucy despite the guards to either side of her?
Her mind worked quickly. Show them you are human and they will show respect. She bowed as she came level with them. Not in the Japanese style, but in the manner of the Hindu, hands together.
They exchanged what sounded like ribald remarks before bowing and returning the same greeting. She would have left things at that and bid a hasty retreat, but a group of three men were blocking her escape. Her heart began to beat rapidly.
Suddenly the lonely sound of a flute drifted into the night, faintly and almost magical. Blessing its gentle intrusion, she began to dance. The men fell to silence and gazed, enraptured.
She danced as she’d never danced before, weaving her arms around her face and over her head, tracing lines in the empty air with her fingers, moving her feet and body at different angles.
East of India Page 13
